There were a lot more groans than grins from the packed crowd at the Altadena Library Thursday as federal officials struggled to defend their forest fire-fighting strategies.

“We’ve spent the last several months studying the feasibility of night-flying services,” said Tom Harbour, the Forest Service’s director of fire and aviation management.

“Oh, geez,” moaned a woman whose home was lost 20 months ago in the Station Fire, who clearly found that reply too little, too late.

If another fire were to happen tomorrow, “Are the aircraft going to show up at 7 a.m.?” as they failed to at the Station Fire, asked Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, who convened the meeting.

No, the expense of “double-crewing” to make that feasible has still not been approved, Harbour said.

“In other words, nothing has changed,” came a call from the audience.

Over and over again at the community meeting, often in bureaucratically pedantic terms, residents questioned why 250 square miles of our Angeles National Forest were blackened, two lives were lost, over 200 homes destroyed – and asked what were the lessons learned.

All too often, the officials’ replies indicated that any learning was happening painfully slow.

“At this point, we’re not likely to discuss findings” of a government investigation into delays in fighting the fire through chemical drops from aircract, said Stephen Gaty of the Government Accounting Office.

“When?” cried the crowd.

“Toward the end of 2011,” which will be well over two years after the fire finally burned out.

How about a new policy of using aircraft that can drop retardants at night? That’s a matter of “acquiring assets,” Harbour said.

“Can you give us a timeline? In August, it will be two years,” Schiff said from the dais, clearly frustrated. “A couple of months,” Harbour said.

To be fair, the Forest Service officials, including Martin Dumpis, the acting supervisor of the Angeles, were in a pretty rough situation. They can’t unring the bell that is the fact of how the fire was fought in its early hours, and how it subsequently spread. Fighting a wildfire in the extraordinarily steep terrain that is the San Gabriel Mountains above La Canada Flintridge in the heat of August is no easy task, whether from the air or from the chaparral. Naturally a crowd full of folks who had lost their homes would be upset. Truth be told, in terms of loss of life and property, the results could have been far worse – if Santa Ana winds had been blowing, for instance. And there is the ultimate devil’s advocate position to consider – what historian Mike Davis calls the “Let Malibu burn” theory of Southern California development: When you build a home at the edge of the forest, or in Tujunga Canyon, you have put it potentially in harm’s way.

So no answer could satisfy in the end. Another exchange: Q: “Why weren’t those planes on the fire at dawn?” A: “It’s boots on the ground that in the end put fires out – not aircraft.” “OK – where were they?”

To be fair again, the 18 large aircraft the Forest Service has to fight fires around the nation are all literally World War II vintage, and getting harder to maintain.

But there are unanswered questions about the still-closed burn area even from those who did not lose a home.

“I retired to hike in the Angeles Forest,” called out Bruce Wright of Pasadena. “I was told (reopening) could be this spring. And now it’s the spring after that?”

As with other questions, the answer to that is unclear. Acknowledging “it has been a long wait,” Dumpis said that soon 110 miles of trails of the 250 closed would be reopened. But full access? No one knows.

Each fire season, “double crewing” needs to be in the potential budget. Each fire season, county helicopters need to be at the ready to join the ancient fixed-wing planes. Each fire season, boldness as well as bureaucracy needs to be in the arsenal against blazes.

We appreciate the work of the men and women of the Forest Service and all firefighters who have over many generations put their lives on the line to protect us and our natural resources. But, as with other government bodies, we expect transparency in the way that work is carried out.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.